Saint Ursula with Two Angels and Donor

Benozzo Gozzoli

National Gallery of Art

A person holding a flag, Saint Ursula, stands in front of a cloth held up by two winged angels as a fourth person, much smaller in scale, kneels in the lower right corner in this vertical painting. All the people have pale skin. Saint Ursula and the angels have blond hair, rosy cheeks, delicate features, flat gold halos, and they wear leaf-green garments. Saint Ursula stands with her body facing us but she turns to look off to our right and slightly down. A raspberry-red cloak lined with white, perhaps fur, is draped across her shoulders. She holds a bunch of that fabric with her left hand, to our right, and holds the staff with a white standard marked with a red cross with her other. Text around her halo reads, “SANCTA VREVLA VIRGO.” The angels above have red wings and the word “ANGELVS” appears in each halo. The fabric they hold up is forest-green decorated with gold, foliate designs, and the space behind them is lined with thin white clouds against a vivid blue sky. Near the lower right corner of the composition, a person about a half the size of Saint Ursula kneels and wears a dark gray head covering, white cloth covering her chin and neck, and a grayish-brown robe. She faces our left in profile and presses her hands together in prayer. The floor below is loosely swirled with light brown, pink, and blue. Text painted in tiny black letters near the kneeling woman reads, “Suora Ginevera.”